Christina Rossetti, “A Sonnet of Sonnets, #6.”

Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,—
     I love, as you would have me, God the most;
     Would not lose Him, but you, must one be lost,
Nor with Lot’s wife cast back a faithless look,
Unready to forego what I forsook;
     This say I, having counted up the cost,
     This, though I be the feeblest of God’s host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with his crook.
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
     That I can never love you over-much;
     I love Him more, so let me love you too;
     Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him, if I love not you.

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